The present invention generally relates to semiconductor device packaging and, more particularly, to multichip packages and the interconnecting of the chips within the package using thin films.
There is a need in the semiconductor packaging industry for high performance, low cost, small size, and lightweight multichip packaging technology. Applications such as high performance gaming platforms up through super computers will require multichip packages to optimize performance, cost and overall package size and weight. Such package optimization becomes especially important where multiple processor chips and cache memory interact.
Current solutions such as organic chip carriers, ceramic chip carriers or silicon chip carriers all have limitations related either to size, weight, performance, cost or a combination thereof with respect to these applications. Ceramic multichip modules tend to be large in area, thickness and weight. Organic packages can reduce the size and weight but do not have the same level of circuit interconnect capability so performance suffers. Silicon packages with thin film wiring provide both weight and size savings with a high level of interconnect capability but are costly to produce. And, all three of the previous solutions cannot provide close chip packaging in order to minimize the chip to chip wiring net lengths and therefore maximize performance.
In order to maximize chip to chip performance on multichip packages, it is necessary to bring the chip to chip interconnects as close together as possible. Conventional solutions using ceramic, organic, silicon or a combination thereof, with or without thin films, place the chips side by side with power, ground and signals traveling up from the bottom of the carrier (i.e., the interface to the xe2x80x9coutside worldxe2x80x9d) and chip to chip interconnects traveling across the carrier between chips. The result is a long path between chips which adversely impacts performance. Solutions with chips on both sides of the chip carrier reduce path length but do not optimize it. Solutions incorporating direct chip to chip connections, either face to face or on top of each other (e.g., three dimensional packaging) cannot meet high power or cooling requirements for high performance processors.
Various solutions have been proposed to maximize chip or chip to chip performance on multichip packages.
Beddingfield et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,710,071, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein, discloses a conventional single chip or multichip package in which wiring extends vertically between the chip or chips on the top of the package and the input/output connections on the bottom of the package and horizontally for power, signal and ground functions.
Prasad et al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,281,452, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein, discloses the formation of a multilayer thin film structure on a carrier which is then transferred to a permanent substrate, e.g., a ceramic substrate. This particular reference discloses an interposer between the multilayer thin film structure and the permanent substrate.
Brown et al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,304,232, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein, discloses multiple stacked printed circuit boards as a three dimensional method for densely packaging passive and active components. The arrangement shown is a relatively thick, low density package and does not address closely coupled, low inductance, high performance packaging requirements.
Pushpala al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,010,951, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein, discloses a semiconductor substrate having integrated circuits on two sides but does not address interconnecting the integrated circuits on one side to the integrated circuits on the other side.
Leedy U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,834,334 and 5,985,693, the disclosures of which are incorporated by reference herein, disclose the fabrication of semiconductor devices on a thinned semiconductor substrate covered by a thin membrane of silicon dioxide or silicon nitride which is held by a frame. In an alternative embodiment, conventional chips are mounted on the membrane. These references do not address two sided mounting of chips or providing wiring for power and ground requirements.
The foregoing references fail to provide a multichip package design that improves on the size, weight, chip to chip interconnectivity (i.e., performance) and cost of the multichip package.
Accordingly, it is a purpose of the present invention to have a multichip package which is small in size, light in weight, has chip to chip interconnectivity and reasonable in cost.
It is a further purpose of the present invention to have a multichip package which additionally has adequate power and ground distribution and cooling capability.
These and other purposes of the present invention will become more apparent after referring to the following description of the invention considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
The purposes of the invention have been achieved by providing, according to a first aspect of the present invention, a multichip module comprising:
a frame having contacts suitable for making an electrical connection with an article;
a multilayer thin film structure mounted to the frame; and
a plurality of semiconductor devices mounted to the thin film structure with at least one semiconductor device on each of two opposed surfaces of the thin film structure;
the thin film structure comprising (i) a first array of pads on a first surface of the thin film structure for connection to at least one semiconductor device, (ii) a second array of pads on an opposed surface of the thin film structure for connection to at least a second semiconductor device, (iii) a third array of pads on a surface of the thin film structure and proximate to the periphery of the thin film structure for connection between the thin film structure and the frame and (iv) wiring within the thin film structure for connecting between the first and second array of pads and for connecting between the thin film structure and the third array of pads.
According to a second aspect of the invention, there is provided a method of forming a multichip module comprising the steps of:
forming a thin film structure on a temporary carrier;
attaching an electrically insulating frame to a first surface of the thin film structure;
attaching at least one semiconductor device to the first surface of the thin film structure;
removing the temporary carrier; and
attaching at least one semiconductor device to a second surface of the thin film structure, wherein the first surface is opposed to the second surface and wherein there is interconnectivity through the thin film structure between the semiconductor devices and the frame.